Rube

//ɹuːb// name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person of rural heritage; a yokel. Canada, US, informal

    ""Same time," said Babbitt, "no sense excusing these rube burgs too easy. Fellow's own fault if he doesn't show the initiative to up and beat it to the city, like we done—did. […]""

  2. 2
    a person who is not very intelligent or interested in culture wordnet
  3. 3
    An uninformed, unsophisticated, or unintelligent person. derogatory
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A diminutive of the male given name Reuben.
  2. 2
    A male given name.

Synonyms

All synonyms
hayseedhickyokelyokelbabebackwoodsman

Example

More examples

"Tom built a Rube Goldberg machine."

Etymology

Generic use of the name Rube. See hey rube for more.

Related phrases

hey rubegiven name

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.